Messier 106, a galaxy 20 million light-years away, has been shot many times by the Hubble Space Telescope. Amateur astronomer Robert Gendler combined Hubble images with his own for a computer-generated version with new details.
This is the Andromeda galaxy, one of the most famous objects in the northern sky. This view, shot in far-infrared light by Europe's orbiting Herschel Space Observatory, shows cold dust in rings around the galaxy, 2.5 million light-years from Earth.
This a dwarf galaxy called NGC 5477, near the Pinwheel Galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major (the Great Bear) in the northern sky. The Hubble Space Telescope shot this image as part of a project to measure the distance to galaxies less than 30 million light-years from Earth.
This is NGC 6872, the largest known spiral galaxy ever seen in the sky. It is 522,000 light-years across from one end to the other, which makes it about 5 times the size of our Milky Way. Images were combined from three telescopes for this picture.
A solar eruption rising from the surface of the sun, as seen by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory in Earth orbit. This flare extends about 160,000 miles out into space. Earth is about 7,900 miles in diameter, so this relatively minor eruption is about 20 times as long as our planet is wide.
Why go to Mars when pieces of it have been found on Earth? This meteorite, designated NWA 7034, crashed in the Sahara Desert in 2011. An examination of the rock determined it is 2.1 billion years old and is surprisingly rich in water. Tiny air bubbles in the rock have the same composition as air measured by NASA Mars probes.
Looking a little like a Christmas bauble, this is the planet Saturn as seen from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The ship was steered through Saturn's shadow for this picture. The planet's night side appears to glow green because of sunlight filtered through Saturn's murky atmosphere.
This is a composite image of NGC 922, a ring galaxy about 157 million light-years from Earth. The reddest areas are probably black holes, formed by collapsing stars. This picture was created with images combined from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray telescope, both in Earth orbit.
Astronomers have assembled a new, improved portrait of our deepest-ever view of the universe. Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, the photo was assembled by combining ten years of Hubble Space Telescope observations. Some of the galaxies in it are 13.2 billion years old. The universe itself formed 13.7 billion years ago...
Japanese astronomers have discovered this unusual spiral cloud near the center of the Milky Way galaxy, about 30,000 light years away. They called it a "pigtail" molecular cloud because of its shape, which they say was probably determined by magnetic forces.
Astronomers have found one of the largest objects in the universe, a galaxy cluster where stars are forming more rapidly than anywhere else yet observed. It is called the Phoenix cluster, 5.7 billion light years away in the southern sky.
The Flame nebula, seen in infrared light by NASA's WISE spacecraft. This nebula is part of a giant star-forming complex near the belt of Orion, the constellation in the winter sky as seen from the Northern Hemisphere. The new stars are surrounded by dust and gas.
Our Milky Way galaxy is doomed. Scientists using the Hubble telescope have determined it will be destroyed -- 4 billion years from now, when it collides with the Andromeda galaxy. This artist's conception shows how the sky might look as the galaxies are drawn together by each other's gravity.
A Lyrid meteor shoots across the night sky April 22, 2012. Debris from the comet Thatcher created this streak in the upper atmosphere Sunday, witnessed by people in California and northern Nevada.
The Lyrid meteor shower occurs around April 22 every year, as the Earth passes through the path of an old comet. Astronomers said the chances of seeing meteors would be good this year because a new moon meant the skies would be darker than usual.
The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a new class of planet, a water world enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. It is called GJ 1214b, and as seen in this artist's conception, it orbits a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth. Today it is hot and shrouded in vapor, but scientists say it may once have had liquid water.
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